THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST

by Dave Brown

One sure sign of false teachers is that they start with some of the most difficult passages in the bible and play on the ignorance of their students. (Be watching for this ploy.) Then, once they have their students convinced, they twist simple passages on the same subject to mean things that are not at all reasonable. One overriding rule of biblical exegesis is to allow simple passages to interpret the meaning of the more complicated, not vice versa.

This approach is definitely applied when it comes to the attempts to justify all of the variety of doctrines surrounding the second coming of Christ. The favorite passage is Revelation 20. This is a very difficult passage, and it is not our objective to discuss it here (else we get accused of what we are talking about above). However, we urge you to read it over and see if it is even talking about the second coming of Christ. There is nothing in the passage that definitively states that it is.

On the contrary, consider the following very simple passages that quite clearly describe Jesus’ second coming:

·        John 14:3: “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

·        Acts 1:11: “… Jesus … shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

·        1 Cor. 15:23-24: “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.”

·        1Thes. 4:16-17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

·        2 Pet 3:10: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

We urge you to read the context of these verses. They are crystal clear and quite definitive. Ask yourself: where are all of the details of the doctrine of “the rapture?” Then consider 2 John 9: “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.”